A Pinch of Ooh La La (18 page)

I was still on the couch when Samuel opened the door. He gave me a kiss, then went to the stereo to turn down the music. He went on about his day and told me what was going on with the IPO. Still talking, he sat next to me and helped himself to the second bottle of beer I'd started. He began unbuttoning his shirt after taking off his shoes and stretching out his legs. Finally he seemed to notice the box on the coffee table. “What's that?”

I explained, adding that I didn't appreciate him telling our business to his mother.

He sighed and leaned back into the couch as though he couldn't believe that on top of everything else, he had to come home to a nagging girlfriend.

“You tell your family our business all the time—and you tell Bendrix everything. So what? I had a talk with my mom.”

“I might tell my family things, but they don't butt in the way your mother did today.”

“She was only trying to help, Abbey.” He looked over at me after a moment. “She gave you her wedding dress?”

I nodded.
And it's ugly as hell,
I considered saying.

He took my hand. “That she gave you her dress to wear means a lot. You can't turn her down. I've been feeling frustrated and I needed to talk to someone. I never thought she'd go to the bakery, okay?”

He leaned forward while letting out a long, exasperated breath. He closed his eyes and ran his hands over his head. “I'm under so much pressure,” he murmured. He picked up one of the bottle caps on the table and played with it between his fingers. He leaned back and spoke into the ceiling. “I go to work and I have to prove myself. I'm here with you, and now you're upset. Everything is so damn stressful right now. Even the wedding.” He shook his head and fell forward again. “All I know is pressure. It's constant.”

I felt my heart tugging.
See there? He needs you. Don't add more stress to this man's life. He needs to know how much you love him. It's just a wedding, Abbey. It's just one day. Let it go.

I studied his face and saw the puffy bags under his eyes and his unkempt hair. He needed me. I traced my finger around the curve of his ear and he fell into me like a child in need of a hug. I held him through the remaining bars of “Day and Night.” Then I kissed him on top of his head.

“Small wedding,” I said. “We'll keep it simple and stress free.”

He looked up. “You sure?”

“Yeah, it's fine. It's just a day.”

He sat up and kissed me, his lips opening and closing with mine.

My gut, though, not trusting what had just transpired, whispered from somewhere deep, deep inside—
Suuckeeer.

•   •   •

S
amuel and I were married at city hall in late September by Sandeep Thapar, a bored officiant who conducted the ceremony as if handling a business transaction, going so far as to read our vows directly from a handbook hidden behind a blue binder. The reception was held at Dad's. With only sixty guests in attendance, it felt like one of his parties. Samuel had invited a few friends from work. His family sat through most of the reception balancing plates of food on their laps while sitting stiff and guarded and talking mostly to one another. My family did their usual thing—dancing, singing, and making merry. Dad danced with me while Bailey and Dinah sang “Love Is Here to Stay” with my sister Billie on guitar and Dizzy on piano.

Mom had flown in from Connecticut and helped me dress before we went to city hall. For a wedding present she gave me a necklace made by an elder from the Masai tribe in Kenya. She said the necklace was very old, but since it was new to me, it covered both “something old” and “something new.”

Rita cried. But only because she didn't get to help me plan the wedding she'd wanted for me and thought I deserved. Joan spent an inordinate amount of time talking to Joseph and Phyllis, for which I thanked her. When I saw the wives later at their table laughing, I knew that Joan was laughing at my new in-laws and not with them. At one point she caught me in passing and said, “Dull has an entirely new meaning. God bless you, dear.”

Bailey also caught me in passing. She looked at me, then slowly gazed over at the Howards, who sat motionless in their chairs while everyone danced. She then looked back to me. “Who comes to a wedding and sits like that?”

“That's just how they are. They don't mean any harm.”

She scowled. “What the fuck?”

My wedding cake was three tiers, with a blooming hydrangea
on top and smaller hydrangeas on the bottom two tiers. It took more than twelve hours of work for Beth and me to make the sugar petals for the hydrangeas, but I was proud of our work: From a distance, the flowers looked handpicked from a garden.

I wore Phyllis's dress, extensively altered to where it looked . . . decent enough.

My sister Sarah, in from Austin, took photos. In one of my favorites, I sat in Samuel's lap while we watched the sunset with our backs to the camera. My head rests on his just so, and my shoes dangle off my feet.

Later that night after the Howards and more guests had already gone, I stood off to the side and watched my brothers and a few friends play “Get Me to the Church on Time.” Carmen danced with Samuel; Jake danced with Bailey; Anthony danced with Rita; and Bendrix danced with Aiko. Everyone was having what looked like a great time.

I felt my mom watching me. “You okay?”

“I'm great.”

She had one of those smiles that turned downward in a sly, knowing manner. She was skinny, with thin bone structure and a small nose and mouth. Luckily, I had her metabolism, which allowed me to run a bakery without becoming as large as the bakery itself.

She kept her gaze on the crowd. Mom wasn't a talker. She wasn't the kind of mother who tried to get me to open up and share every little thing. When I'd visited every summer and during winter break while growing up, she'd kept to her own routine, leaving me to fit myself into her life. So I was surprised when she bumped my shoulder. “You sure you're okay?”

I watched Samuel switch from dancing with Carmen to dancing with Rita. He twirled her with one finger and she did a low back kick, resurrecting a move from her years as a dancer.

“I'm fine.”

“It's a fun wedding, Abbey. Look at everyone. And your cake was stunning. No one wanted to touch it.”

“I could make you one, if you ever remarry.”

“That will never happen. I'm too headstrong.”

We watched everyone dancing and whooping it up. Samuel—my husband—clapped to the music with his hands in the air. I said, “I thought I'd feel different.”

“Different how?”

“I don't know.” I sipped from my flute of champagne. But I did know. I had expected to feel happier. I had expected to feel more alive, and oddly enough, more me; but in truth, my wedding reception felt like any other of Dad's parties—a
fabulous
party, to be sure, but not a wedding reception, not
my
wedding reception. I knew I was going to look back on my one and only wedding and think—
eh
.

Mom said, “Abbey, trust me on this: It's the marriage, not the wedding. Your father and all those jazz standards have ruined you for reality.”

“Don't say that.”

We smiled at each other. Mom was shorter than I. The edges around her barely there Afro were graying. Her eyes were small and intense enough that I felt I could spy in them all her years of travel and work.

I thought:
I have such odd parents, don't I?
A musical genius for a parent was enough to make for an interesting childhood, but toss the wives and exes in, and then there was Mom, who'd call from Bora-Bora after studying some tribe's music or wherever to wish me a happy birthday. It took years before I understood that she genuinely loved me and I needed to let go of my resentment of her work and travel.

Anyway, Mom was right. I didn't get my dream wedding,
but I should focus on the marriage. My kids would have two parents who would never divorce and never miss a birthday. I would be part Phyllis and make sure they knew how devoted I was to them, and part Mom: I'd keep the bakery and continue to work, but only while they were in school. They would have the kind of stability I didn't have, and they'd have all the love. Because although my family could be wacky, at least I'd always known I was loved.

Mom eyed me closely. “What is it, Abbey?”

“It's nothing. I'm okay. Better than okay.” I finished off my champagne and took her hand. “Come on, you. Let's dance.”

You're Driving Me Crazy

W
e went to Yountville after the wedding, having decided to use Samuel's annual bonus money for a real honeymoon . . . Italy or Argentina. We celebrated my birthday while we were in Yountville by dining at the French Laundry. I have to say, eating that exquisite food with my husband was a great way to welcome in my thirty-ninth year.

I stopped taking the pill on my wedding night. I would've stopped before, but Samuel made it clear he wanted nothing to do with having a kid out of wedlock.

And then we waited to become pregnant.

And waited.

And waited.

Month after month after month.

By the time our one-year wedding anniversary came around, I began suggesting adoption, but Samuel said he wanted his own kids. I argued that he'd love any kid we adopted as his own, but he wasn't amenable to the idea. We were both tested for any
fertility problems and came out in the clear, except I was closing in on my forties, and the doctor told me in her own professional manner that I was foolish for thinking I'd get pregnant right away. Of course it was going to take time, she cautioned, if I was lucky enough to get pregnant at all.

Time did its thing. Days and weeks continued to pass. I mean to say, no baby.

In early spring, about a year and half after the wedding, I was featured in
Brides
magazine. I stood next to my van Gogh cake, named for its electric colors and sunflower design. Requests skyrocketed after the issue came out, and I began working longer hours to keep up. Samuel was busy at the office, too. Looking back, I think our work gave us an excuse to avoid each other and to “connect” only when we were too exhausted to do much more than watch a movie. We had sex whenever I was ovulating, but less frequently when it wasn't crucial.

I had no idea a man's biological clock could tick as loudly as a woman's, but Samuel wanted kids even more than I'd realized, or maybe even more than he realized, and it was heartbreaking to have to break the news to him, month after month, that my period had arrived.

“So why don't you just adopt already?” This was Anthony's advice.

About a month after the doctor's exam, when Samuel and I were told everything was “fine,” we were invited to Bendrix's for dinner. Samuel had to work late, so I took advantage of his absence and allowed myself to eat too much of Anthony's paella and vent about my marriage. Aunt Nag was there. Bendrix and Anthony had been vacationing in Santa Barbara during her birthday and were making it up to her with dinner. She loved my cream puffs, so I'd brought several. We ate them in the living room with a dessert wine Bendrix had opened.

Anthony didn't bother hiding his frustration. “I've worked with many kids who were dumped into the foster care system and destroyed by it. Kids who need
homes
.”

Bendrix's house sat on a hill overlooking Lake Merritt. It was beautiful, with vaulted ceilings and dark wood beams that worked well with his modern aesthetic. The chair Aunt Nag chose was by a contemporary designer, bright orange with a high arching back that swallowed her whole. She looked so tiny she brought to mind Alice in Wonderland, except old and eating a cream puff.

Anthony continued. “You could at least start the adoption process while you wait to conceive.”

I said, “Samuel won't even think about it. He wants his own kids.”

“That's some bull, right there,” Aunt Nag said. “They'll be his own kids just as soon as he sees them. They'll really be his when he pays for their college.”

“I know, Aunt Nag, but I can't force him.”

“Sure you can. Adopt 'em on the sly and bring some home one day and tell him, Hey, here are your kids, shut up.”

We all laughed, although Aunt Nag remained perfectly serious, as her face disappeared behind her giant cream puff.

Anthony cozied up next to Bendrix and wrapped his arms around him. Bendrix bristled, then appeared to remember that human contact from the man you loved was a good thing. I watched as he eased his shoulders back into a relaxed position and smiled at Anthony. Anthony, though, pressed his luck when he tried to play with Bendrix's ear. “Okay,” he said, pulling his head away. “Let's not get carried away.” Anthony shook his head at Bendrix:
I love you despite your curmudgeonly ways.
Bendrix scrunched up his nose:
I love you, but you're right: I'll never change.

I could feel a sense of envy rising. From the way they looked
at each other, I knew they had something (
but what?
) that Samuel and I didn't have. They turned from each other when they felt me watching. Feeling like I'd been caught, I bit into my cream puff and pulled my socked foot up onto the couch, a moss-colored thing that was anything but comfortable and should have been left at the high-end boutique where Bendrix had found it. I said, “I can't believe I'm talking like this, about wanting to adopt and my fertility issues. Whoever thought?”

“Maybe you and Samuel should consider getting marriage counseling,” Anthony ventured. “Never hurts to check in.”

I tuned up my nose. “Samuel would never.”

“Have you asked him?” Bendrix said.

“No, but I'd be willing to bet this god-awful couch I'm sitting on that he'd say no.”

“That particular couch is highly sought after by those who appreciate fine furniture. And if you don't like it, the floor is beneath your feet and you're welcome to sit on it.”

We simultaneously exchanged half smirks, half smiles.

Anthony said, “I'm not saying this because I'm a therapist—hell, yes I am: You two could use a check-in. With in-law issues, no-baby issues, and technology-addiction issues”—I'd complained how Samuel was always on his laptop or phone—“it would not hurt.”

“We'll be okay,” I said. I was feeling guilty about being so negative. “I wouldn't say he is addicted to his laptop.”

“Sounds to me like he uses it to zone out.”

Bendrix raised his wineglass. “No laptops in the bedroom,” he intoned. “The bedroom should be a techno-free zone; so says
our
couples counselor.”

I explained that things weren't as bad as I made them out to be. I told them about Carmen doing so well in school and how Samuel never complained about my work schedule. I added, “And he always makes sure the oil is changed in my car.”

“Sounds romantic,” said Aunt Nag. She licked cream from her fingers with tiny smacks.

Bendrix said, “You know, Abbey, instead of talking to us, you would probably benefit from speaking to a well-trained, impartial professional who can help you express any subconscious fears in the safety of his or her office.” He grinned. “I must say I, personally,
love
therapy.”

Anthony said, “Don't mind him. He really does love it. Admit it.” He gave Bendrix a nudge. “Go on.” Another nudge.

Bendrix gave in. “It's true. It's helped us. A lot.”

“Maybe you can talk to Samuel for me,” I ventured. Right off, though, I heard how needy and immature I sounded. “You could play it off like the idea came from you.”

Aunt Nag said, “You don't need no therapist, child. Sounds to me like what you need is a damn backbone. Why you thinking about having a kid when you can't even talk to your damn husband like a grown woman? Ain't you and Bendrix the same age? But you trying to get Benny to do your dirty work. Don't you bring my nephew in this mess when what you need to do is talk to your husband on your own. Hell, you married him. Use your damn voice. That's what God gave it to you for.” Her cream puff long gone, she went about dabbing at her plate with the tip of her finger.

When I looked over at Bendrix and Anthony, they stared back with wide-eyed grins.
She told you,
their faces said.
Mmmm-h
mm.

•   •   •

I
went home with Aunt Nag's words stinging my ears. I told myself that I had to talk to Samuel. It might take another year before I became pregnant, and we couldn't let our happiness depend on whether we had a kid or not. Counseling wouldn't hurt, either.

I opened the door and noticed a pair of tapping sneakers poking out from one end of the sofa. Carmen and Samuel sat at
the dining room table. A pizza box was opened and books were everywhere.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” they called.

I assumed the tapping feet belonged to Jake.

I kissed Samuel hello. He was on his laptop and raised his arms and yawned. He asked if I'd had a nice time at Bendrix's and I told him yes. “What time did you get home?” I asked.

“We finished earlier than expected. I didn't feel like socializing. Hope you don't mind.”

“That's okay,” I said, rubbing his back.

He glanced at Carmen. “This one here thinks she's ready for the LSAT, so I was running her through her paces.”

Carmen looked at him and smirked. “I'll be ready. Just watch me.”

Dad, no surprise, thought Carmen should take a year off to travel before she entered law school, but she was anxious to start right away.

Jake, from the couch: “Hi, Abbey!” He sat up and I saw the massive speakers on his head. He'd gone from wanting to be a music producer to working as a landscape designer. He'd been out of school for almost two years and was as devoted to Carmen as ever. I was surprised they were still together after all this time, except Carmen, to my surprise, was still gaga over Jake. She'd once told me, “He's my best friend. I love him.”

Carmen yawned. “I should get going. Jakey-Jake? Come on. Let's get.”

She gave me a hug. She was growing more confident and more beautiful. She'd lost a few pounds, but I think the main difference was that she no longer tried to hide her body behind sweats or dumpy outfits.

Jake came over and took us both in his arms. “Group hug! Ahhhhh!”

Carmen and I laughed.

Samuel drank from a half-empty bottle of beer. “Car, if you stick with this guy, you'll probably have to be the breadwinner.”

“Hello! I'm standing right here, man.”

“Hey.” Samuel shrugged. “I call 'em like I see 'em. Who's prepping for law school and who's—what
are
you doing, anyhow?”

“I'm still working on my music and doing landscape design. Abbey, have you heard Monk's ‘Evidence'? Carmen played it for me. Imagine Monk over some electronic with some rap thrown in.” He started moving his shoulders in torturous poses.

Samuel pursed his lips at Carmen. “You really plan on taking him to law school with you?”

“Like I said, man, I'm standing right here.”

I pressed my nose between Samuel's shoulders. “Ease up on him, babe.”

“You don't have to defend me, Abbey.”

“You don't,” said Carmen. She held her books and purse in her arm. “Jake'll go back to school.”

“How do you know?”

She rolled her eyes. “You want me to help clean up?”

“I got it,” said Samuel.

“Cool.” She gave Jake a shove, then grabbed at his shirtsleeve. “Let's go.”

“It's hard out here for an idiot savant,” he said, letting Carmen drag him off.

“Use protection!” I called.

“Abbey!” Carmen cried. “Damn!” She added solemnly, “No one has to worry about that. Ever. Like never, ever.”

Jake clapped his hands and stuck each foot out from side to side like a cowboy doing a jig. “Ain't got time for babies. Only the ladies. I don't act shady or crazy. The girl's gotta use the pill if she wants her fill—”

“All right, all right,” I said, frowning. “There's absolutely no way you're smart.”

“Ahhhhh!”

“Bye!” Carmen called, pushing Jake out the door. “Love you guys!”

When I turned, Samuel was already leaving the room, carrying the empty pizza box and as many plates as he could hold.

•   •   •

I
n remembrance of my single days, I climbed into bed a few minutes after Samuel in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. I wanted nothing to do with lingerie or anything sexy. I wanted comfort. Good, old-fashioned sweats-and-a-T-shirt comfort.

As soon as Samuel saw me, he gave me a sideways glance. “The wife in sweats,” he murmured. “We haven't even hit the two-year mark.”

“I want to be comfortable. Sue me.”

“You forget who you're talking to,” he deadpanned.

He opened his laptop.

“Hey.” I was becoming a real master at talking with Samuel, all right. I nudged him. “Hey.”

He sighed. “Now what?”

“Bendrix and Anthony are in couples counseling. Anthony says it's like getting a checkup.”

Samuel started typing.

“Are you listening?” I asked.

“Bendrix and Anthony are in couples counseling,” he repeated flatly.

“They call it getting a checkup. Maybe that's something we could do.”

“A checkup for what?”

“I don't know, Samuel. I mean, look at us. Sometimes I feel I can't talk to you.”

“You've been saying that since we met. Trust me, we talk all the time.”

“I still think it would be a good idea if we went to see someone.”

“Why? We haven't been married two years.”

“Time shouldn't matter. It couldn't hurt. We could talk about—”

“First of all, we have no issues. Nothing that we can't handle ourselves. And second, you need to think about the word itself. The. Rapist. Get it? Therapists exist like everyone else—to make money and get what they can out of innocent people willing to pay a stranger to listen to them whine.”

“Bendrix and Anthony aren't like that, and they say it helps.”

“Good for them. We're not them. You need to stop comparing, Abbey.” He leaned over and kissed my shoulder. “Sweetie, we're fine. Think about it. We're just busy; nothing more. Everything can't be love and romance twenty-four/seven. You love me, right?”